State Pension Systems Need Added Funding

Illinois` five public pension systems might be headed for financial trouble unless the state`s share of funding is restored to a higher level, Illinois Comptroller Roland Burris said Wednesday.

Burris, in a report covering a 10-year review of the pensions, said the state in the last three years has reduced the funding level to the pensions from 100 percent of annual benefit payments to 60 percent. At the end of fiscal 1984, the unfunded obligations of the five systems--money owned to future pensioners--stood at $7.3 billion, he said.

The five pension systems--for legislators, judges, state workers and college and elementary and high school teachers--are funded by the state and by system members, who contribute from 4 to 11.5 percent of their salaries for retirement purposes.